So I brewed my first trappist-style ale in May. I bottled in the 31st. WLP500 made some delicious banana and pineapple aromas while fermenting at around 80F. I've only been brewing for 6 months and have a low-tech AG thing going, 3 gallon batches and 65-70% efficiency. Anyhoo I got around 1.056 OG and finished about 1.010. I bottled on the 31st, so it's been 2 weeks. I've been sampling it at each stage, and at each stage it has lost some of its flavor, if that makes sense. Great mouthy fruit notes during primary. Fruity notes leaving by bottling time. Gone by the first week. Today I cooled one down to see how it's carbing, and the trappist taste is gone. GONE. Carbing great, but it has almost no body and all those wonderful flavors have disappeared. I had considered that since it was a low OG maybe the yeast ate up all the malty and belgian sugar tastes that trappist ales have going on, whereas a higher OG might have left those flavors intact after bottle conditioning? Can anyone tell me what is going on?

Interesting, I made a batch of Beaujolais wine a couple years ago and had the same thing happen. After doing some research I found out that my wine had bottle sickness or bottle shock. It happens after the wine is moved or racked to a new environment. Mine started lacking flavor after about a week in the bottle. I gave it another week or two and as if by magic the wine regained all of its flavor. I've never heard of this in beer but I guess it may be possible. I say give it another week and see how it is.

X2 on more time. Two weeks is the minimum for carbonation at best. Let them age a bit more and then try them. I don't know all of the science behind why this happens but I know the longer I let it go, the better it usually is. As mentioned above you can also lose some flavor if it's too cold, but at this point you probably just need more time.

The trappist taste is gone and it's not coming back. BUT one thing I didn't mention was that I threw in dregs from ommegang aphrodite(? it's the one with brett B) during fermentation - you know, since it is a trappist style ale and that can be part of the style? The disappearing taste is turning more dry and more into a slight tartness (sometimes associated with brett B). I'd almost say cherry-like. AND there are pellicles in the bottle. My sophomoric conclusion is that the brett B pi$$ed out a ton of it's own esters, and in so doing took over the flavor, but that's all I can figure. I just took a gravity reading, and conditioning didn't knock it down at all from 1.010. However, I am about to bottle a Tripel IPA that used a starter from this beer, I will be very interested to see if something similar happens to this one.

One, I would give this a few more weeks... my bottles always take over a month to carb properly. Also, maybe got an infection or some weird wild yeast from using the dregs from the brett? I've had two bottle infections and neither tasted bad, they just had a lot less taste than the rest of the batch and a strange mouthfeel. If you get gushers in a few weeks, that may be the problem.

OK, update. My Tripel IPA is experiencing the same issues as the trappist-style. Belgian esters during ferment, gone by bottling. I'm sure now, because of the same unmistakable earthy/cranberry/cherry-ish tart flavor, it's the brett. This yeast mixture of wlp500 and ommegang's brett B. ate it down about 70 grav points - about 87.5% attenuation. They must work well together. Matter of fact most of that work was done in about 5 days. Interesting taste. I wouldn't have chosen a Brett-ed IPA, I wanted the belgian esters, but it's interesting. Next project for sure is a bare bones sour with wild lacto.

Conclusion - this particular brett B., if added before OG is reached, either eats up or covers up any of the previous esters produced. I can't wait to taste this $hit in a year's time. I'm going to have fun with this yeast.